Critical Reasoning

People in twenty different occupations were tested by a psychologist to determine how relaxed they were and how extroverted they were. The psychologist discovered that college teachers were the most relaxed and engineers were the least relaxed. The psychologist concluded that college teaching is a much more relaxing occupation than is engineering.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the psychologist's conclusion?

A. Most people who choose college teaching, but few who choose engineering, are relaxed people when they embark on their careers.
B. The college teachers had developed many interests to pursue in their leisure time, but the engineers had developed few such interests.
C. The college teachers had to meet more frequent but less rigid deadlines at work than did the engineers.
D. The college teachers and the engineers were approximately equally extroverted.
E. People who are very relaxed are also likely to be extroverted

OA A; I want to know what the problems are with options B and C. Do they not provide alternative explanations as to why teaching (on its own merit) is not a relaxing occupation-hence weaken?

Thanks.

We need to identify a factor unrelated to work which can be responsible for engineers being more stressed and college teachers being more relaxed. The conclusion states that college teaching is a much more relaxing job than is engineering.
A is the best choice because it shows that there exists the correlation between the choice of a job and the state of being a relaxed person BEFORE choosing a career. So it is the personality that influences the choice of a job and not the job that influences one's tendency to be stressed or relaxed.
B is incorrect. It states that college teachers have more relaxing hobbies than do engineers. In my opinion this choice is there to distract you but, in fact, it rather strengthens the conclusion. Engineers might have fewer hobbies because, for example, they work longer hours and thus might be more stressed because of their jobs. So the fact that engineers have fewer relaxing hobbies might be the result of their stressful life-style.
Answer C also neither strengthens nor weakens the conclusion. We don't know which type of deadlines is more stressful.

I see argument like a causality;
If X ==> Y, to weaken, we can say
condition Y(the effect) exists before condition X(the cause).

A: Most teachers are relaxed even BEFORE taking up their career: mimics the logic above.
B: Just as u earlier stated; B sort of strengthens the argument in saying
that TEACHING, as a profession, allows u more leisure time than ENGINEERING.

C: We don't know whether strict deadlines are more stressful than the less strict ones??
Generally, a very tight deadline leaves u with little time and should be more stressful, right?
Even at that, I concur with you that it still has got to do with the profession.

I was no where near the answer.

IMO it was C.....Can anyone explain how to neglect C as "Kasia" said in her comments. I am not satisfied

karthikpandian19 wrote:I was no where near the answer.

IMO it was C.....Can anyone explain how to neglect C as "Kasia" said in her comments. I am not satisfied

The college teachers had to meet more frequent but less rigid deadlines at work than did the engineers.

This statement does not give any clarity whether MORE FREQUENT DEADLINES are problematic or RIGID DEADLINES are problematic. For some more frequent deadlines give stress, but for others more rigid deadlines. This choice just cites a statement without giving any idea whether teachers are really more stress or less stress because of more frequent deadlines. So drop C